The Giving USA 2009 Report on Philanthropy tells us that giving is down for the first time in more than a decade (and for only the second time since 1956) and that 82% of giving comes from individuals.  Bummer or opportunity?   At GlobalGiving we see opportunity. If we can help individual project leaders learn how to use new tools and how to fundraise from a larger pool of individuals then sustained growth is possible.  (Teaching people how to fish and all of that.)

This summer GlobalGiving held our first American Open Challenge targeted to give training and tools to US grass roots projects.  The hope was that we could help small non profits raise funds that they had not counted on, attract donors they did not know and survive another year.  Did it work?

From a macro view-it certainly was successful. 73 new organizations to GlobalGIving raised $331,000 in 3 weeks.  Terrific but was this a one hit wonder or was there learning, adoption and motivation for sustained changes in fundraising and donor expansion?

We have been digging deeper to understand how our new partners view the experience. Following is what we heard about their fishing expeditions.

• They developed intense 3 week plans to communicate, coerce and convince their friends, relatives, acquaintances and donors to spread the word and take action.
• They used all media available to them (GlobalGiving showed them how)Face book, Twitter, Linked In, email–although there was labor time the out of pocket costs were insignificant. And they did not worry too much about burn out–they keep the messages and touch point flowing.
• The ask was simple–give if you canand if not—–tell your friends and colleagues–building the extended network is critical.
• They reached out to local media outlets using GlobalGiving tools and found that the press will report on the little guys who are making a difference.
• They were clear about what was at stake and the urgency of the request.

So, will the fishing continue? The answer has been a resounding,’ YES’!  The projects we have interviewed tell us that between 70 and 90% of the donors were new to their organization.  Whole new groups of donors to explore and engage for the future. To that end GlobalGiving is constructing a fourth quarter promotion to help our current partners maximize giving from current donors and to attract new donors and fans.

GlobalGIving will also run our second American Open in October of this year to support more new fishermen/women.  We hope to help many more project leaders enjoy the feast!

https://www.globalgiving.com/contactus/project2.html

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Frogloop, Care2’s awesome blog, has a great post by Jared Schwartz  that features Critical Exposure’s success in GlobalGiving’s first American Open Challenge as an example of how Social Networking and Crowd Sourcing can help organizations raise funds and motivate their supporters.

Here at GlobalGiving, we’ve been providing social networking and crowd sourcing training to our nonprofit project leaders in the U.S. and abroad. We’ve found organizations that use techniques like the ones Critical Exposure  employed for the American Open Challenge have been most successful not only during GlobalGiving’s fundraising challenges but in online fundraising  and supporter activation efforts in general.

Definitely read the entire post.  But if you don’t have time I’ve outlined in my own words 3 key takeaways for successful crowdsourcing:

1. Ask your network of supporters to help you fundraise by telling everyone they know about your cause and current efforts.
2. Keep your supporters updated on your organization’s progress and let them know they are part of something special.
3. Have a clear message, with a clear call to action that you repeat over and over again using all of your communication channels (aka message saturation).

Oh, and if your organization is interested in participating in the next American Open Challenge, you can find more information on the registration page. Critical Exposure raised $15,000 and won an additional $5,000 for being a top fundraiser in the last challenge.

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It’s with pride, and a virtual bang of the gong (banging on a real gong is the way we celebrate achievements and good news in the GlobalGiving office) that we announce some exciting news:  GlobalGiving has been awarded a 4-star rating by Charity Navigator!

Charity Navigator currently “rates” over 5,000 501(c)3 organizations in the US by examining a charity’s financial health, and then awarding an overall rating - between 0 and 4 stars.  While sometimes criticized for focusing too narrowly on financial ratios that do not evaluate the “big picture” and outcomes of an organization’s work, Charity Navigator remains the most-utilized evaluator of charities, and many donors factor these ratings into their giving decisions.

In 2008, the first time GlobalGiving was eligible to be evaluated (4 years of IRS Form 990s are required to be considered), we scored a respectable 3 stars. This year, based on updated financial information, we were excited to learn that we have earned the 4-star rating based on (in Charity Navigator’s words) “(its) ability to efficiently manage and grow its finances.  Approximately a quarter  of the charities we evaluate have received our highest rating, indicating that GlobalGiving executes its mission in a fiscally responsible way, and outperforms most other charities in America.  This exceptional designation from Charity Navigator differentiates GlobalGiving from its peers and demonstrates to the public it is worthy of their trust.”

GlobalGiving is committed to extremely high standards around accountability, fiscal responsibility, and transparency, and we are proud of what this rating represents.  Especially during these tough economic times, we know that donors are giving extra thought to how they spend their donation dollars - and we hope this external validation gives them even greater confidence that they are making smart choices when they give to a project on GlobalGiving.

We appreciate your continued support!

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Recently, Science Magazine (August 21, 2009) described the findings of a recent survey by Richard Wiseman, who who asks what is the most potent trigger for happiness? Science Mag writes:

“[Richard Wiseman] divided his 26,000 [online] respondents - mostly young adults - into five groups. One was a control group. During a 5-day exercise, each of the other groups engaged in one type of upbeat behavior: being kind to others, dwelling on a happy memory, feeling grateful, or smiling.”

And the results over 5 days?

1. Control: Half got happier, half didn’t (just as you’d expect of a large random sample)
2. Dwelling on a happy memory from yesterday (65% got happier)
3. Feeling gratitude (58% got happier)
4. Practicing smiling (58% got happier)
5. Trying to perform an “act of kindness” (50% got happier, identical to the control group)

So how do these findings map to what we do at GlobalGiving? I assume people get happy when they give to something they care about, which is an “act of kindness.” But just how happy do people get?

My girlfriend pointed out that performing an “act of kindness” is much harder than the others, so maybe fewer people succeeded, and so fewer got happy.

What do you think?

How do you interpret this survey, as it relates to GlobalGiving? Post a comment. Thanks in advance!

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Tori Hogan at the Social Edge blog “beyond good intentions” recently wrote about the problems with getting reliable feedback from projects in international development, and what GlobalGiving has been doing to improve feedback. Here is an excerpt:

“My old stats professor will probably kill me for this, but what ever happened to good old-fashioned gut instincts? Do you trust anecdotal reports by people who have visited field projects and come away with certain perceptions?

I started considering this concept recently when Marc Maxson at Global Giving introduced me to a new project they’re running that allows people who visit any of their countless field sites to submit ‘postcards from the field‘. These blog-like reports written by non-professionals (mostly by interns and student travelers) have an open-ended framework and are only guided by the question,’”what would you tell your friends about this project?’ According to Marc, ‘gut feelings about recommending a project are broad enough to predict deeper problems.’”

Tori dug through our more than 70 postcards from 2009 and found that this new Visitor Postcards program still needs more volunteers to scale up. I quote again from that post:

“However, as I scrolled through the “postcards” I had a really hard time finding any that were critical of the organizations they highlighted. Are visitors afraid to report on problems or are these organizations actually as perfect as they sound? Marc informed me that, ‘most volunteers try to self-filter and only say good things publicly, but privately send in negative comments.’ Well, it’s not perfect, but at least it’s a start!”

This remains true. The vast majority of comments on projects are positive, although I can think of two organizations who hosted visitors this year that posted negative comments and triggered larger dialogues. But anyone doing a spot check on our postcards is bound to miss them because they are not a significant fraction.

Bloggers and the public are our advisors. I personally thank Tori and look forward to doing what I can to get more honest feedback from visitors onto the site. Visitor postcards have played a major role in the outcome of one organization, and we will be presenting a case study on this at the upcoming Skoll “International Social Innovation Research Conference.”

I replied to Tori’s post:

We think visitor postcards have been a major success because more people are getting a first-hand account of what projects look like. And (as our case study will show) it also works to reform a problem project. The power of real-time feedback loops was enough to cause the organization visited to dissolve and reform under new leadership of a group of underserved beneficiaries. This happened in spite of the “self-filtering” problem we discussed.

Visitors often don’t realize that they omit inconsistent (negative) details when they have good rapport with the people the meet. This is human nature, and affects tourists and evaluators alike. I urge you to read “The Surprising Power of Neighborly Advice” from Science Magazine (March 2009), which shows that (a) strangers’ gut feelings are more reliable trust indicators than a set of facts and (b) most people DO NOT BELIEVE THIS even though they act on it.

I cannot underscore strongly enough that getting more people to walk through more  village-level development projects would transform the way that money is spent, for a variety of reasons.

I hope you’ll attend our talk at ISIRC in September, 2009 - Oxford!

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There is a lot of schlock out there in book stores on the personal motivation and business shelves.  “If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It” is a typical title, with many books assuring you that if you just take the first step, the world will rise up to meet you.  These books do serve a function:  they motivate people to be more entrepreneurial and give them permission to follow their dreams.  And, of course, I would not have spent the last nine years of my life working on GlobalGiving if I were not optimistic about the ability of a small group of people to change the world. 

But many of these books are recipes for major disappointment and backlash down the road, because they fail to set expectations.  In that context, here is a very nice talk by Alain de Botton at TED.  His key messages are: 1) Success and failure have a huge random component. 2) Idealizing meritocracy results in an attitude that the poor are losers and deserve it, and 3) Promoting the idea that “You can do anything if you put your mind to it inadvertently leads to a lot of low self-esteem among the many people who try hard but fail.

Here are my takeaways from this:  a) Work hard in life and try to follow your dreams, but realize that randomness in life often trumps all, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t succeed; b) If you are fabulously successful, be modest, and realize that luck probably played a big role (in addition to your hard work, vision, and intelligence); and c) given the importance of randomness, avoid putting all your eggs in one basket - maximize your chances for success by doing lots of experiments and ventures over time.

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Last month I had the rare and very moving opportunity to visit a village that had recently received a clean water plant with funds from The Eleos Foundation, implemented by the Naandi Foundation, with GlobalGiving acting as the matchmaker/intermediary.  I visited Loonwa, a town of 10,000, in India’s beautiful and historic, but environmentally harsh, Rajasthan state.  Loonwa, and many other communities in Rajasthan, have a three-fold water problem.  First, there just isn’t much water – imagine farming in Phoenix or Las Vegas.  Second, water contained in stagnant ponds during the rainy season is likely to be contaminated with bacteria and worse.  Third, due to an unfortunate geological situation, the groundwater is high in fluoride and other chemicals that leach into otherwise pure water from wells.  Just enough fluoride helps teeth grow strong, so they put it in our water and in our toothpaste.  Too much fluoride makes teeth turn very white, then they fall out, and it seriously hurts skeletal development of children.  Here’s a scientific discussion of the subject. Enter Eleos Foundation and Naandi Foundation.  Eleos wants to help the poorest of the poor get healthier around the world, and they want to do it through market-based solutions.  Naandi helps communities in India finance clean water plants, and then trains local folks to operate the plant and sell the water at affordable prices.  Through UV and reverse osmosis purification, the water is pathogen and chemical free.  And it’s available for about $18/year for a family.  Over time, the community buys the clean water plant with the proceeds and everyone is healthier.  GlobalGiving helped Eleos connect with Naandi, and now this community has a potential solution to this unique problem. As I pulled into Loonwa with Amit and the Naandi team, I wondered if there was a political rally going on.  It was election time in India.  No, it was a welcoming party for us.  I cut the ribbon on the door of the water plant, saw how the plant works, attended a community meeting where we were all welcomed very warmly by the leaders of the village, then toured a Jain temple.  I was overwhelmed by the sincere excitement about having access to pure water, and I was humbled and a bit embarrassed by the very, very festive welcome I received.  You’ll see my sheepish grin in this video. 

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Originally posted at HuffingtonPost by our co-founder, Dennis Whittle

When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it looks like the carbon-intensive industries are likely to face either a tax on carbon or a market for buying and selling emissions allowances in coming years. But it is not just power plants and large manufacturing facilities that contribute to climate change. All of us are accountable for some level of emissions–begging the question, how can you account for what your organization produces?

A popular answer is carbon offsets–essentially funding a reduction in emissions or increase in carbon storage somewhere so that you can continue emitting carbon here. Although offsets have been widely embraced, the actual amount of carbon kept from entering the atmosphere is often questioned. OK, it will help plant trees. But where? By whom? And will they live the 20+ years necessary to accomplish their offsetting purpose?

An alternative for skeptics is to fund projects that have received the climate-friendly “Green Leaf” designation on our online philanthropic marketplace, GlobalGiving. Our site features smaller environmental and social projects from around the world, letting you find opportunities you would not otherwise discover. Project leaders post detailed project descriptions so donors can see exactly what they’re funding. And donors on GlobalGiving can see directly the difference their donations are making through updates from the field.

Instead of quantifying offsets, we are encouraging individuals and organizations to take responsibility for their own emissions by helping these projects expand their reach. And, we are able to promote a much broader range of projects that address climate change. For instance, a project in Ecuador teaches tens of thousands of children about climate change and ways to combat it. We can’t translate this into tons of carbon, but it can result in a future generation of green voters, consumers, and policymakers. Other projects from the Environmental Foundation for Africa are working not only to provide solar electricity to schools in villages in Sierra Leone, but also to train technical school students in their installation and maintenance.

Encouraging the Third World to keep walking the same well-trodden carbon intensive path is ultimately unsustainable. As David Wheeler and Kevin Ummel of the Center for Global Development report, if nothing changes in the global South their cumulative contribution to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will exceed that of the North within the coming decades. That means that even if developed countries cut their carbon emissions to zero, developing countries will face the same future–rising temperatures, more droughts and flooding, more frequent and intense storms, changing weather patterns.

And there’s no better time to donate to GlobalGiving Green projects than now - the Give a Little Green campaign is matching donations to these projects by 50% through April 28th or until matching funds are exhausted.
Thanks to Bill Brower for the research supporting this post.

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We’ve been on a bit of hiatus, trying to figure out if anyone actually reads this blog and how to make it useful to the GlobalGiving community at large.  The silence has been deafening.

So we’re throwing ourselves at the mercy of our handful of blog readers and asking the two- part question (pay attention lest you miss the two parts):

1. Should GlobalGiving have a blog and

2. If so, what would be worth your time reading?

Let me duck so I don’t get bombarded with the thousands of instantaneous comments.

Seriously, what do ya think?

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GlobalGIving’s work spans the world and that world includes “our own backyard”. Yesterday half of the staff at GlobalGiving ‘world headquarters’ headed out to serve dinner at the Central Union Mission here in Washington DC. 

The world came to our doorstep as we served men from Central America, Asia, Africa, Germany and of course DC.  The work at the mission is a stellar example of a project that solves the problems of homelessness, job training and support in a practical, hands on way.   Just the type of work and creative solutions that GlobalGiving thrives on. 

Huge shout out to Ray for accommodating our gang and for taking us under his wing in service of others.  His efficiency and caring were great models.

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